My psychologist removed my autism diagnosis, which I’d been first given in 2007, last summer. After a long process of negotiations, she decided to diagnose me with dependent personality disorder, borderline personality disorder traits and depressive disorder NOS. I strongly disagree particularly with the DPD label, but more importantly, I want my autism diagnosis back. I requested an independent second opinion, which I’ll be getting the first appointment for this Thursday. Just this evening, I told a leader of an autism group in the Netherlands that I’d be closing the autism chapter if the second opinion provider agreed i’m not autistic after all. Then I’d definitively consider myself, well, what? I’ve rarely used the word “allistic”, which is someone who isn’t autistic. I feel that all people with neurodevelopmental conditions essentially fall on the same spectrum. Many autistics disagree and would not allow, say, a person with ADHD into their community. Indeed, if I’m not autistic, I’m allistic, period.

There used to be some concept of “cousins” in the autistic community, which included people with other neurological or neurodevelopmental differences, such as ADHD, Tourette Syndrome or hydrocephalus. Maybe I could consider myself a “cousin”, since I was at one point diagnosed with hydrocephalus and that’s a far more hard-wired diagnosis than is autism. So I’d be an allistic cousin to the autistic comunity. The concept of “cousins”, however, is barely accepted anymore.

Besides, it’s not just about community. It’s about identity. If I’m told that after all I’m not autistic, a vital part of my identity is being destroyed. Someone compared it to losing their status as an animal lover. It’s far worse. It’s like being told I’m not blind – there is another reason I’m unable to see, but that’s not called blindness. Besides, there’s no ICD-10 or ICD-11 or where are we these days code for it. This is analogous to what my psychologist has done with respect to my autism: it isn’t there, because there is another reason I have cognitive and sensory and social-communicative difficulties, but there’s no DSM-IV code for that.

It affects services, too. If I lost my status as a blind person, I would no longer be allowed to use my white cane. I would no longer be provided with reading materials in accessible formats. I would no longer have access to services for the blind. If there’s no ICD-whatever code for explaining my lack of sight, there won’t be any other way to gain access to these accommodations or supports. I can imagine this is in part the reality for people with conversion disorder manifesting as blindness, since some service and accessible reading material providers ask for verification of the “physical basis” of one’s blindness.

If I lose my status as an autistic person and there’s no diagnosis to replace it with, I’ll not be able to access services that take into account my cognitive, sensory and social-communicative difficulties. In fact, my psychologist has already voiced her disagreement with me applying for day activities for people with traumatic or acquired brain injury. She says I have “congenital brain injury”. At least, that was her reason for removing my autism diagnosis. Since “congenital brain injury” isn’t acquired or traumatic brain injury, I won’t qualify for services for that. Since in fact “congenital brain injury” does not exist in the diagnostic handbooks, there is no help for it. It’s worse even than conversion blindness, since that can be treated somehow.

Now imagine that I, who clealry has an eye condition causing blindness, were told I had conversion blindness for lack of a better diagnosis. That’s about what it feels like being diagnosed with dependent personality disorder as a clearly neurodivergent person.

It could be worse. I could be told I’m not neurodivergent at all. This would go beyond saying I am an unfortunate case of falling between the cracks with my useless diagnosis of “congenital brain injury”. To use the blindness analogy again, this’d be like being told I am fully sighted, yet only believe I’m blind for attention, because I don’t accept my status as a short person, or whatever nonsense claim people have made as to why I erroneously believe I’m neurodivergent. This is a possible outcome of my second opinion too. After all, though I have hydrocephalus, there is no proof as per a neuropsychological evaluation that this has caused me lasting impairments. My psychologist is of this opinion to an extent and so are my parents and sister, believing I have problems because I think I do.

Back to my autism diagnosis or the lack thereof. Some people say you’re autstic if you’re autistic no matter how many professionals say you are not. They say that, if support tailored to autistics, including being part of the autistic community, works, you must be autistic. With my poor self-image, I’m not so sure this would be the case for me.